Overview of Windows 95 Local Editions

This chapter summarizes information about local editions and multilanguage support for Windows 95, and it provides technical details about defining regional settings in setup scripts.

Windows 95 is being made available in the following local versions, among others:

Windows 95 does not provide support for multiple Windows code pages. Just as with earlier versions of Windows, all international versions of Windows 95 are based on a single Windows code page of 256 code points. The following international versions of Windows 95 are available.

United States.

This version of Windows 95 is based on the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Windows code page (1252). This is the code page used for most of the single-byte language versions in North America, South America, Western Europe, Scandinavia, South Pacific, Africa, and Asia. This version will be available in English, German, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, language editions. This version also forms the base for all other versions.

Far East.

This version of Windows 95 is available in Japanese (932), Simplified Chinese (936), Traditional (Taiwan) Chinese (950), and Korean (949). These are the only versions of Windows 95 that support the large character sets and input methods these languages require. They also support a vast array of the unique hardware used in the Far East.

PanEuropean.

This version of Windows 95 allows the user to select the correct Windows code page for their particular language during Setup. After it is installed, the Windows code page cannot be changed. Choices include Cyrillic (1251), Central Europe (1250), Turkish (1254), Greek (1253), and Baltic (1257). This version will be available in Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Greek, Turkish, and other languages.

Middle East.

This version of Windows 95 is available in Arabic (1256) and Hebrew (1255). These are the only versions of Windows 95 that support mixed right-to-left and left-to-right text processing. The Arabic version also includes support for Farsi (Persian).

Thai.

This version of Windows 95 is based on the Thai code page (876).

For information about ordering a local edition of Windows 95, contact your software vendor or your local Microsoft office.

The Win32 Software Development Kit for Windows 95 and Windows NT and the Microsoft Developer Network provide complete information about the architecture, APIs, and other needs for developers who are creating or modifying applications to run on local editions of Windows 95. For information about joining the Microsoft Developer Network, see Appendix J, "Windows 95 Resource Directory."

The Windows 95 Resource Kit is being made available in at least the following local versions: Croatian, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Slovenian, Spanish, and Swedish. For information about ordering a local edition of this book, contact your local bookseller or your local Microsoft office.

Developing International Software for Windows 95, a Microsoft Press® book by Nadine Kano, provides details about using the Windows 95 National Language Support (NLS) API and other information about developing software for use in multiple locales. To order this publication (ISBN 1-55615-840-8), contact your local bookseller. You can also order it directly in the United States by calling (800 ) 677-7377 or through CompuServe® (go msp).

Overview of International Language Support

Windows 95 offers international language support to provide solutions to problems created when using software and exchanging documents among different locales and languages. Windows 95 offers this support at the operating system level for users, and at the API level for software developers. This section summarizes this built-in international language support for using Windows 95 on a worldwide basis, and the features that Windows 95 provides for enhancing existing or new applications for use in different parts of the world.

Easy-to-use multilanguage fonts and keyboard layouts.

With Windows 95, users can easily switch between all available languages and corresponding keyboard layouts configured on the system. This makes it easy for users to integrate information into a multilingual document. By using the Keyboard option in Control Panel, users can easily add and remove keyboard layouts and languages. By using the common Choose Font dialog box in applications created for Windows 95, they can choose character-set scripts (such as "Greek") supported by a particular font. For more information, see "Using Multilingual Fonts with Win32-Based Applications" and "Using Alternate Keyboards" later in this chapter.

Substitution for unavailable fonts when switching languages.

When switching between languages in a document, Windows 95 substitutes matching fonts for the new language if the original font is not available. Users can read and use the text for a similar character set, even if they don't have the font in which the information was originally created.

Preservation of language-specific attributes on the Clipboard.

Windows 95 provides additional services for application vendors to easily exchange information between internationally-aware applications, while preserving all language formatting characteristics.

Easy addition of multilanguage support for software developers.

Developers can use the Win32 NLS API for loading, selecting, and querying keyboard layouts and languages. NLS services ensure that information is handled properly for the given culture or locale by supporting formats for date, time, calendar, number, and currency, and for sorting, character typing, and character mapping. The correct national format for information such as date format or sorting sequence is supplied automatically, based on the settings specified in the Regional Settings option in Control Panel. Win32-based applications can use Windows 95 services to automatically switch between the proper fonts and keyboard layouts as users navigate through a multilingual document. For more information, see "Using Multiple Languages in Windows 95" later in this chapter.

Proper sorting and formatting rules for the current locale.

Different locales and cultures have different rules for interpreting information, such as algorithms for sorting or searching, and formats for time and dates. Software developers can use the Win32 NLS API to check and use the user's default locale settings or to use a specific locale setting, without using proprietary sorting methods or parsing WIN.INI or the Registry, and without locale-specific coding. This allows users to easily exchange information on a global basis, while preserving the integrity of the information. For example, the multilingual support in Windows 95 can be used in applications to account for these kinds of differences among language rules:

• In French, diacritics are sorted from right to left instead of from left to right as in English.

• In Norwegian, some extended characters follow the Z character because they are considered unique characters rather than characters with diacritics.

• In Spanish, CH is a unique character between C and D, and Ñ is a unique character between N and O.

Specifying International Settings

During Windows 95 Setup, the operating system is configured for a default locale, either based on settings that Setup detects from the previous operating system or based on options that the user chooses. Windows 95 Setup also copies most international information for all other supported locales onto the user's hard disk drive, where applications can access them. You can specify international settings during Windows 95 Setup or change the default settings afterward in Control Panel.

During Setup, you can specify the following settings in the Computer Settings screen:

• Regional settings, for specifying the local language and, in turn, the local conventions for other settings such as date, time, and currency formats. This also sets the MS-DOS code page and MS-DOS country settings.

• Keyboard layout, for specifying the default keyboard layout to be used with Windows 95, based on local requirements. This also sets the MS-DOS keyboard layout.

  Language support, for selecting one of the following combination of languages:

  • English/Western European

  • English/Western European and Greek

  • English/Western European and Cyrillic

  • English/Western European and Central European

  Windows 95 selects the English Western European option by default.

After Setup, you can specify or modify the following settings in Control Panel:

• Add languages and corresponding keyboard layouts using the Keyboard option, as described in "Using Alternate Keyboards" later in this chapter.

• Modify the local language default for settings such as date, time, and currency using the Regional Settings option.

• Add or remove language support (Greek, Cyrillic, or Central European) in the Add/Remove Programs option.

You can configure each of these settings by defining options in custom setup scripts, as described in the following sections. If user profiles are enabled (as described in Chapter 15, "User Profiles and System Policies"), the international settings preferences in Windows 95 can be saved in each user's profile. In this case, if a single computer is used by multiple users, each user can select a different default locale.

Changing Regional Settings in Windows 95

To change locale conventions after Windows 95 is installed, use the Regional Settings option in Control Panel. This option sets the default system formats for country, language, date, time, currency, and numbers. You can also customize these formats.

To change regional settings in Windows 95

• In the Regional Settings option in Control Panel, click a tab to define settings for that property, as summarized in the following list. When settings are as you want them, click OK.

  Properties tab	Description
  Regional Settings	Specifies the regional settings you want, to automatically define how dates, times, currency, and numbers are displayed and sorted.
  Number	Specifies how numbers are displayed (including the decimal character used), how digits are grouped, and how negative numbers are shown; also specifies the measurement system used.
  Currency	Specifies how currency is displayed (including the decimal character used), how digits are grouped, and how negative values are shown.
  Time	Specifies how time is displayed, including the hour and minute separator; also specifies how morning and afternoon times are designated.
  Date	Specifies the calendar type, and how short and long dates are displayed; also specifies the character used as the separator between the day, the month, and the year.

Defining International Settings in Custom Setup Scripts

You can specify values in the [System] section of a custom setup script (such as MSBATCH.INF) to define regional, keyboard layout, and multilanguage settings other than the defaults.

To specify the regional setting in MSBATCH.INF, set locale= in [System] to a value listed in the [LocaleList] section of LOCALE.INF. The following table shows some of the values for regional settings that are available in the United States edition of Windows 95. For local editions of Windows 95, check LOCALE.INF entries for Eastern European, Far Eastern, Middle Eastern, and Thai values.

Values listed in the [KeyboardList] section of MULTILNG.INF specify the particular keyboard. Use one of the following strings to define the keyboard=value in the [System] section of MSBATCH.INF (or a similar file).

Values listed in the [OptionalComponents] section of MULLANG.INF specify the three optional languages you can add to Windows 95: Greek, Cyrillic, and Central European. Use one of the following strings to define the multilanguage=value in the [System] section of MSBATCH.INF (or a similar file).

For more information about creating custom setup scripts, see Chapter 5, "Custom, Automated, and Push Installations."

Changing the Code Page

The code page is an internal table that the operating system uses to relate the keys on the keyboard to the characters displayed on the screen. Different code pages provide support for the character sets and keyboard layouts used in different countries.

When you install Windows 95, Setup checks the current system configuration to determine the regional settings:

• For Typical Setup, Windows 95 Setup automatically chooses the regional settings for the current system configuration, and then automatically installs the related code pages for Windows and MS-DOS based on the current configuration.

• For Custom Setup, you can choose to specify alternate regional settings. Windows 95 Setup automatically installs the standard Windows and MS-DOS code pages for the regional settings selected.

You can use the Regional Settings option in Control Panel to change the locale. This will affect the display in Windows-based applications. However, for MS-DOS – based applications and for the MS-DOS prompt, the code page installed during Setup is always used. Windows 95 does not include any feature that allows you to change the code page used by MS-DOS.

However, you can use one of the Windows 95 Resource Kit utilities CHANGECP.EXE, to change the code page used for console displays (MS-DOS – based applications and the MS-DOS prompt). This application makes all the changes for fonts and other system elements in the Registry and other configuration files.

This application is useful to you if your site uses an alternate character set other than the default code page the Windows 95 Setup uses. You know that you need an alternate code page if, after installing Windows 95, your MS-DOS – based applications do not display properly — specifically, if the wrong fonts appear or the wrong characters appear as you type.

For example, the default code page installed for French Canadian under Windows 95 is 850, but your site might use code page 863 as a standard. As another example, the United States default is 437, but some companies choose to use code page 850. In these cases, use CHANGECP to install the alternate code page.

To change the code page used for MS-DOS – based applications

1. Copy CHANGECP.EXE and any other files in the CHANGECP directory with the Windows 95 Resource Kit utilities to your local Windows directory.

2. At the command prompt, type changecp

3. Select the code page you want from the list that appears.

   Alternately, you can type changecpcode_page_number if you know the code page that you want.

CHANGECP automatically makes all related system changes. The next time you start Windows 95, the new code page will be used for all MS-DOS sessions.

Important: The CHANGECP utility is not designed to be used for changing code pages on a regular basis. Also, frequently switching the MS-DOS code page will confuse users of MS-DOS – based applications.

Using Multiple Languages in Windows 95

Windows 95 provides the keyboard layouts and fonts required to type, edit, view and print documents containing many different languages. For information about creating a document that contains multilingual text, see "Using Alternate Keyboards" later in this chapter. By default, the version of Windows 95 sold in North America, South America, Western Europe, Scandinavia, Africa, and Australia includes the following keyboard languages and layouts.

For information about adding or removing any of the languages in the preceding list, see Windows 95 online Help. To add Central European, Cyrillic, and Greek-based languages, you need to install multilanguage support, as described in the following procedure.

To install multilingual support

1. In the Add/Remove Programs option in Control Panel, click the Windows Setup tab.

2. In the Components list, click Language Support, and then click the Details button.

3. Click the languages you want, and then click OK.

When two or more languages are installed, an icon on the taskbar indicates which keyboard is currently active. Users can switch between installed languages by clicking the keyboard icon, or by using a hot-key combination specified in the Keyboard option in Control Panel, as described in "Using Alternate Keyboards" later in this section.

The Windows 95 compact disc includes TrueType® fonts that contain characters for all the Western European and Eastern European languages. After you install multilingual TrueType font support, you can access the complete set of 652 characters in applications that support these fonts, such as WordPad. This allows for proper presentation of fonts for a given language.

An application that uses the common Choose Font dialog box can allow users to select from all the character sets and fonts configured in the system. The Script box in this common dialog box allows the user to choose the characteristics related to the language of the text being formatted. For example, depending on the character set and the locales available on a particular computer, the Script box could allow the user to choose from Western, Greek, Cyrillic, or Turkish characteristics for the selected typeface. Of course, the user must choose the appropriate keyboard for using related text characters, as described later in this section.

To access multilingual TrueType fonts in WordPad

1. Click the Format menu, and then click Font.

2. In the Font dialog box, select a font characteristic for the language in the Scripts box, and then click OK.

Using Multilingual Fonts with Win32-Based Applications

For users who create or edit multilingual content in their documents, a Win32-based application that uses the international services in Windows 95 can automatically activate the correct fonts and corresponding keyboard layouts for editing specific text within a document.

Win32-based applications can indicate the language used in text in a document by tagging the text with a locale identifier. For example, such applications can automatically use spell checking, thesaurus, hyphenation engine, and grammar checking applications associated with the language of the text it is checking, if they are available. They can also format dates according to the language of the text. Applications that use locale identifiers can determine date, time, currency, and number formats, and sorting behavior, and they can use these identifiers to determine which keyboard layout and fonts to use for typing and displaying text in a particular language.

To take advantage of the multilingual font capabilities in Windows 95:

• Make sure your application uses the Win32 NLS API. For information, check the documentation that comes with the application or contact the software manufacturer.

• Install multilingual support under Windows 95, as described in this section.

• Use the application's dialog boxes for selecting language-related font attributes and for specifying the language attributes of selected information.

Using Alternate Keyboards

If you are using an application that supports tagging text for alternate locales or languages, you can use alternate keyboards to easily create documents that contain more than one language.

To select the alternate keyboards you want to use in Windows 95

1. In the Keyboard option in Control Panel, click the Language tab.

2. To add another keyboard, click the Add button.

3. In the Add Language dialog box, select the alternate keyboard that you want to install, and then click OK.

   

4. If you want to change the default keyboard, select the one you want in the Language list, and then click the Set As Default button.

5. If you want to specify a key combination to use to switch between keyboards, click a key combination in the Switch Languages area.

   

When you want to switch keyboards while working in an application such as WordPad that can take advantage of multilingual support, use the key combination you specified or use the Windows 95 taskbar.

To switch to another keyboard using the Windows 95 taskbar

1. Click the keyboard icon on the taskbar.

2. In the menu that appears, click the language you want to use.

The icon for switching keyboard layouts appears at the right end of the taskbar.

If your application uses the NLS API, you might be able to specify that rules for sorting, searching, spelling, and other actions be used for the portion of text typed using that language. Applications that use the NLS API can distinguish between the default locale the user has set for Windows 95 and the language of text in a document. For example, Microsoft Word 6.0 for Windows makes language a text property. Just as users can format selected text as bold, italic, or double-spaced, they can format selected text as being in a specific language, as shown in the following illustration.

The Language dialog box in Microsoft Word 6.0 for Windows

Using Windows 95 Support for Local Conventions

A great deal of linguistic research went into creating the collection of locale information in the Windows 95 Registry and the algorithms and tables used by the Win32 NLS API, which includes support for local formats for date, time, calendars, currency, and numbers. The Windows 95 Registry contains more than 90 locale-related strings; in addition, the Win32 NLS API allows each application to request information for any locale.

The Windows 95 default date or time formats are the most commonly used formats for each locale, but applications can provide support for other local conventions. Such conventions are ways of formatting information specific to a language, local dialect, or geographic location. Currency symbols, date formats, calendars, numerical separators, and sorting orders can all be affected by these conventions.

For example, some languages, such as Finnish, German, Polish, and Russian, have several forms for each noun. Windows 95 carries both the nominative and genitive forms of Polish and Russian month names; the form changes depending on the month name's position in the string relative to the day name. For all other languages, Windows 95 carries only one form of each month or day name.

Most locales use the Gregorian calendar, but some editions of Windows 95 also support Hijri (Middle East), Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, and Thai calendars. (Windows 95 will add support for more calendars in the future as necessary.) Although calendars in the United States list Sunday as the first day of the week, calendars in other countries, such as Germany, list Monday as the first day of the week. Similarly, not all cultures assume that the week containing January 1 is the first week of the year. The calendar type that Windows 95 assigns to each locale accommodates such cultural preferences.

Currency and number formats also vary among locales. Reformatting a number based on the locale involves more than changing the currency symbol or the decimal separator. A currency symbol can come before the numerical quantity or it can come after. It might or might not be separated from the number by spaces. The currency symbol can be one, two, or more characters. In addition, if a currency amount is negative, Windows 95 can format it in one of 16 different ways.